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Geek Weekly is pleased to welcome guest writer Señor Jacinto LaInferiora to the
fold. The following material is from a recent interview with the wonderfully lush
pop group the New Pornographers, the finest Canadian musical export in many
years. They've got an upcoming record, Electric Version, on Matador, and are
a favorite in the LaInferioria trailer home.

DECONTEXTUALIZED WORD ASSOCIATION
WITH
NEW PORNOGRAPHERS

Frontman Carl Newman, bassist/engineer John Collins and vocalist Neko Case.

Supergroup
Carl Newman: It's embarrassing, because we're not. Any band with people
who've played in other bands could arguably be called that.

Canadian Bands Suck
Carl: It's just simple statistics. There's not many people in Canada, so it makes
sense that there wouldn't be many good bands. I think now there's actually more
good ones than there's ever been, not counting Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, the
Band. There's actually bands that I think are genuinely good, not "pretty good
for a Canadian." (Editor's note: including Hot Hot Heat and the Hidden Cam-
eras).

Sophomore Slump
John Collins: You don't want to lose what was great about the first record, but
you want to improve on it. It's really lame when people make the same record.

Carl: I felt a little contrary. Wanting to go in an opposite direction, maybe
leaving off a song that might have been a crowd favorite because it's god a big
beat. The first record has all those tra la la choirboy vocals, that was played
down a little bit. We had to accept the fact that no matter what we did, there
were people that would go, your record sucks. it's too much like Mass Roman-
tic. Or, "it's not enough like Mass Romantic." Once we realized that it kind of
frees you. You just do whatever the hell yo want.

Will the Circle Be Unbroken
That's what we thought Mass Romantic was. I like the idea of returning to that

Spring 2003 9